Maintaining ecological resilience in regional landscapes: Scenario analysis tools to assist environmental conservation and planning decisions

我们居住的景观通过提供重要的生态服务以及对干扰和环境变化的适应能力，支持为人类福祉做出贡献的物种和生态系统。因此，人类和生态系统错综复杂地交织在一起，在环境规划和资源管理中应考虑到这些关系。在多功能景观中，维持生态弹性将需要仔细规划和评估不同土地利用决定所固有的权衡。这项研究将提供工具和方法，让从业者了解景观尺度上人类和生态过程之间的复杂相互作用，以及在不同政策和规划决策中的权衡。未来五年，不列颠哥伦比亚省的奥卡纳根盆地将成为一个案例。奥卡纳根是一个具有特殊生物多样性的地区，也是加拿大最濒危的生态区之一，这主要是由于栖息地的丧失。人类人口增长预测表明，该区域在未来几十年将继续承受发展压力，需要就不同土地利用变化情景所固有的权衡作出艰难的决定。拟议的研究将量化这些取舍，并就如何保持具有生态弹性的景观提出建议，使人类土地利用(农业、木材采伐和建筑环境)与生物多样性保护(自然栖息地的面积和连通性)相协调。具体目标是：1.)记录奥卡纳根地区当前和历史的土地利用和土地覆盖如何改变了自然栖息地的总面积和连通性；量化奥卡纳根地区未来土地利用情景对生物多样性的潜在影响；3)确定自然生境总面积和连通性的关键阈值，超过该阈值后，奥卡纳根的景观可能不再具有生态弹性，以及4.提出保护和土地利用规划方案，以保护奥卡纳根地区的本地生物多样性和生态弹性。这项研究将与奥卡纳根地区三个区的土地利用规划者和科学家以及相关的联邦和省政府部委密切合作进行。通过开发决策支持工具，为综合的景观规模管理和规划提供信息，并通过奥卡纳根案例研究展示其有效性，这项研究有可能显著影响加拿大的环境政策，特别是不列颠哥伦比亚省的环境政策。通过在景观尺度上发展生态复原力的概念，其结果也将对多功能景观的管理和规划具有广泛的重要意义，有助于促进对协调社会和生态目标的工具和方法的日益增长的需求。

The landscapes we inhabit support species and ecosystems that contribute to human well-being by providing important ecological services and resilience to disturbances and environmental change. Human and ecological systems are thus intricately intertwined, and these relationships should be considered in environmental planning and resource management. In multi-functional landscapes, maintaining ecological resilience will require careful planning and assessment of the trade-offs inherent in different land use decisions. This research will provide tools and approaches to inform practitioners about the complex interactions between human and ecological processes at the landscape scale and the trade-offs in different policy and planning decisions. Over the next five years, the Okanagan Basin in British Columbia will serve as a case study. The Okanagan is an area of exceptional biodiversity and is also one of Canada's most endangered ecoregions, largely due to habitat loss. Human population growth projections suggest that the region will continue to undergo development pressure over the next decades and difficult decisions will need to be made regarding the trade-offs inherent in different land use change scenarios. The proposed research will quantify these trade-offs, and make recommendations on how to maintain an ecologically resilient landscape that conciliates human land use (agriculture, timber harvest and built environments) with biodiversity conservation (area and connectivity of natural habitats). The specific objectives are to: 1.) Document how current and historical land use and land cover in the Okanagan have modified the total area and connectivity of natural habitats; 2.) Quantify the potential impacts of future land use scenarios for the Okanagan on biodiversity; 3.) Identify critical thresholds in the total area and connectivity of natural habitats after which the Okanagan landscape may no longer be ecologically resilient, and 4.) Propose conservation and land-use planning scenarios to conserve native biodiversity and ecological resilience in the Okanagan. The research will be carried out in close collaboration with land use planners and scientists from the three Okanagan Regional Districts as well as relevant federal and provincial government ministries. Through the development of decision-support tools to inform integrated, landscape scale management and planning, and the demonstration of their effectiveness through the Okanagan case study, this research has the potential to significantly influence environmental policy in Canada and particularly in British Columbia. By developing the concept of ecological resilience at the landscape scale, the results will also be broadly significant to management and planning of multifunctional landscapes, contributing to the growing need for tools and approaches that conciliate social and ecological objectives.